Paddington in Peru to G20: the seven best films to watch on TV this week
A South American immigrant in London has to return to home. But this isn't a Reform political broadcast, and the marmalade-addicted bear in question has a shiny new British passport. Aunt Lucy has gone missing from her Home for Retired Bears in the Peruvian rainforest, so Paddington and the Browns (with Emily Mortimer taking over as Mrs Brown) fly off to find her. Less a fish-out-of-water comedy than a fish-back-in-water quest, Dougal Wilson's film gives Paddington a few slapstick pratfalls but it's more of a spoof Indiana Jones tale, revolving round the myth of El Dorado, with Antonio Banderas as a boat captain and Olivia Colman as a nun joining the fun.
Tuesday 8 April, Netflix
An interesting study in contrasts could be made between Gary Oldman's performance as a slovenly MI5 operative in the acclaimed TV series Slow Horses and his serious-minded, tight-lipped George Smiley in Tomas Alfredson's superbly finessed 2011 drama. John le Carré's thriller novel about the hunt for a Soviet mole in MI6 must have been difficult to squeeze into a two-hour film but the plot here is almost seamless. And Oldman is magnetic alongside a top-notch cast including Tom Hardy, Colin Firth and Kathy Burke.Sunday 6 April, 10pm, BBC Two
After the global success of Your Name (showing on Saturday), Makoto Shinkai doubled down on the teen romance angle in this delightful animated fantasy. Hodaka is a runaway 16-year-old boy in a permanently rainy Tokyo who comes across 'sunshine girl' Hina. She has the magical ability to banish the stormclouds, so they go into business conjuring blue skies for weddings, sports days and the like. But Hina's skill comes at a heavy cost. A film worth watching just for the play of light, clouds and rain, but as a tale of first love it is just as illuminating. Sunday 6 April, 1.20am, Film4
This devious psychological thriller about a marriage is based on an original idea by Daisy Ridley and written by her husband, Tom Bateman, so it's possible the couple are working out some stuff here. Ridley plays Annette, whose daughter Matilda (Hiba Ahmed) wins a role in a movie. However, it's her writer spouse Ben (Shazad Latif) who gets to chaperone the child on location – and lust after its Italian star – while Annette is stuck at home with their new baby. Latif is on point as a self-entitled, sexist fool, while Ridley is mesmeric and edgy as the vengeful Annette. Thursday 10 April, Paramount+
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In a bit of a career switcheroo, Tony-winning actor Viola Davis joins Hollywood's long line of US presidents turned action heroes in Patricia Riggen's thriller. Danielle Sutton is attending a G20 summit of world leaders in Cape Town, South Africa, when the venue is taken over by terrorists led by Rutledge (Antony Starr, AKA Homelander in The Boys). It's down to Sutton, who's pretty nifty with a firearm, to save her family, Douglas Hodge's British PM and, inevitably, the free world. Thursday 10 April, Prime Video
A product of the hippy era in the same vein as Yellow Submarine, French director René Laloux's extremely trippy 1973 cartoon feature follows the Draags, blue-skinned, red-eyed inhabitants of the planet Ygam. They have taken humans, who are tinier than them, from Earth to use as pets – but the 'Oms' have escaped and now constitute a wild population to be controlled and culled. An allegory of our treatment of animals, the film's principal pleasures come from the weird and wonderful flora, fauna and far-out fashions on display, rendered in exquisite cutout animation. Thursday 10 April, 10.45pm, Sky Arts
Christopher Zalla's 'inspirational teacher' drama leaves the likes of Dead Poets Society in the dust – not least because it's set in a Mexican border town mired in poverty, corruption and gang violence. Eugenio Derbez is Sergio Juárez, who takes over a sixth-grade class at an institution nicknamed Punishment School. The kids are nonplussed by his unconventional methods – as is the principal – but they quickly become engaged and reveal their hidden potential. Based on a true story, the film's setting guarantees heartbreak as harsh realities intrude on them all. Thursday 10 April, 11.40pm, Film4
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Daily Record
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Netflix's Adolescence is now second biggest English-language show on streaming platform
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The Guardian
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Ronald Corp obituary
Ronald Corp, who has died aged 74, made an indelible mark on the British music scene, particularly in his work with choral singers. Having founded the New London Orchestra in 1988, he went on to establish and conduct its children's choir, as well as directing the London Chorus (previously the London Choral Society) and Highgate Choral Society, bringing together singers of all ages and abilities. A prolific composer, especially of choral pieces and songs, he wrote in an engaging style that delighted performers and audiences alike. His works in all genres were well crafted, often characterised by lively, syncopated rhythms and abundant melodic appeal. In 1996 he launched a series of recordings of Light Music Classics (four of British music, one of European and one of American) with his New London Orchestra. The British discs featured the signature tunes to such classic radio and television programmes as The Archers, Music While You Work, Dr Finlay's Casebook and Desert Island Discs, with scores by Eric Coates, Ronald Binge and many others. His own music, though similarly easy on the ear, was generally more serious in tone, owing much to the English choral tradition; it was also mildly dissonant, with Benjamin Britten, Holstian bitonality and Martinů among the notable influences. Corp's aim in founding the New London Children's Choir was to involve children in the performance of music both traditional and contemporary. To that end, he both commissioned pieces by such composers as Michael Nyman and Louis Andriessen (both patrons of the choir) and wrote many himself. The choir made multiple appearances at the BBC Proms and at other venues, as well as recording for film and television. Born in Wells, Somerset, the son of Geoffrey, a municipal gardener, and an amateur pianist and piano accordionist, and his wife, Elsie (nee Kinchin), Ronald began composing even before he learned to play the piano, using his own notation to remind himself of his intentions. After studying music at Oxford University, where Simon Preston was an important mentor, he worked for the BBC in London as a librarian, producer and presenter (1973–87). In 1999 he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England, serving as a non-stipendiary minister successively at St Mary's Kilburn, St Mary's Hendon and St Alban the Martyr, Holborn. A considerable proportion of his vocal works are settings of sacred texts or works by such poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins (Laudamus), George Herbert (Mary's Song), Francis Thompson (The Hound of Heaven) or John Ruskin (Nothing Can be Beautiful Which is Not True), reflecting his religious and ethical approach to life. Despite his calling, he did not restrict himself to Christian texts. Adonai Echad (2000), for soloists, choruses and orchestra, juxtaposes texts from the Jewish and Christian faiths, including psalms, prayers and poems. His orchestral compositions included four symphonies, two piano concertos and concertos for flute, recorder and cello. The Wayfarer (In Homage to Mahler), drawing on melodic fragments from that composer's music, was composed for Help Musicians UK and premiered at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in 2011. It may be performed either by 16 solo singers (as at the premiere), or chorus and orchestra. Another piece for chorus and orchestra, This Sceptr'd Isle, was given its premiere at the Barbican the following year in a concert with the Highgate Choral Society, marking the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. And All the Trumpets Sounded, given its premiere in 1989 by the Highgate Choral Society, which commissioned it, was considered by Corp his first important composition. Referencing Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem and Britten's War Requiem, both of which he hugely admired, the work similarly features poems of the first world war, the requiem sequence and the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Other substantial choral works with orchestra included Behold the Sea (2016), again commissioned by the Highgate Choral Society. Among his smaller-scale works were Dover Beach, commissioned by the BBC Singers, and a setting of Dante for the ensemble Gesualdo Six. His operas included The Pelican, based on the play by Strindberg; Wenceslas, a Christmas opera for children; and The Ice Mountain, also for children. Letters from Lony (2017) was a setting of letters from a Jewish woman in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, Leonie (Lony) Fraenkel, to her infant grandson, Peter Lobbenberg, unfolding a story of the writer's removal from her home to the Westerbork transit camp, to Theresienstadt and thence to Auschwitz. Scored for soprano, piano and string quartet, the work is essentially conversational – there are mentions of the ping-pong club upstairs and a bathtub crocodile that squirts water – though Corp succeeded in darkening the tone in a series of four interludes. He was due to conduct it again at the Three Choirs festival this August. He was a voracious reader, not least of poetry, and his songs include sets devoted to the verse of individual poets, among them Walt Whitman, Francis Thompson, Robert Browning, AE Housman, WB Yeats and William Blake. As in his choral works, Corp displayed a mastery of word-setting: his compositions were unfailingly pleasing to sing. Some of Corp's finest music is contained in the symphonies: the First, with its opening bold brass sonorities presaging powerful harmonic plunges later; the darker, serious-minded Second and Third; and the Fourth commissioned for the chamber forces of the Echo Ensemble. The Cello Concerto, with its movingly elegiac slow movement, and the First Piano Concerto are also worthy of special note. Releases on CD included The Songs of Ronald Corp sung by Mark Stone; Dhammapada, a setting of Buddhist texts for chamber choir; three string quartets, a clarinet quintet ('Crawhall') and the dramatic scena The Yellow Wallpaper, adapted from the short story of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. His recordings of music by other composers included, in addition to the light music series, Rutland Boughton's opera The Queen of Cornwall, and works by John Foulds, Arthur Sullivan (Corp was vice-president of the Sullivan Society), Satie, Poulenc, Prokofiev and Grazyna Bacewicz. His orchestrations of Satie's Trois Gnossiennes featured in the film Chocolat (2000), starring Juliet Binoche. Corp believed strongly in the spiritual power of music. Inspired by his religious faith, a thirst for life and a sense of the act of creation as a voyage of discovery, he used to say that 'a day without writing is a day wasted'. In public and private, he was a warm-hearted, sympathetic man, who wanted his music to be useful to society. He is survived by his civil partner, John Glass, sister, Pauline, and brother, Robert. Ronald Geoffrey Corp, composer, conductor and priest, born 4 January 1951; died 7 May 2025
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‘Chip Shop Diva' hands out free chips for National Fish & Chip Day
A coastal town was treated to free chips by 'Chip Shop Diva' but with a twist - the chippy was powered by an electric car. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... In the aptly named Kent town of Deal, National Fish and Chip Day was celebrated with 300 portions of chips given away, as well as a limited run of battered fish. But it wasn't your ordinary chip shop, with the chippy being powered by two electric cars and fronted by TikTok's 'Chip Shop Diva', Destiny Harold. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Dacia Spring, which its makers say is the cheapest electric vehicle currently on the market, was the power behind the frying, in partnership with local chippy, The Blue Mermaid Fish Bar. It comes after a poll of 2,000 adults found fish and chips is the most popular treat on a British holiday, as well as cream tea and hot doughnuts. Others to feature in the top 20 list include Mr Whippy ice cream, Cornish pasties and mussels. Quintessentially British foods, such as fish finger sandwiches, strawberries and cream and a pie and mash also featured in the ranking. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A spokesperson for car brand Dacia said: 'It was fun treating passers-by today and showing the power of our electric car, Spring, using its vehicle to load technology, which allows you to power external devices off the car's battery. 'It's no surprise we have a national day dedicated to the iconic meal that is fish and chips and the study shows just how much we love it and associate it with holidays by the seaside. 'Playing on the phrase 'cheap as chips' in line with our affordable car and being in the appropriately named Deal, was a great way to celebrate National Fish and Chip Day.' The chippy is serving freshly cooked fish and chips using 100% EV battery power on Deal Pier | Will Ireland/PinPep Fish & Chips most popular treat on British Holiday The research also found 41 per cent of adults describe such foods as nostalgic, while 45 per cent feel satisfied after eating them. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad When ordering a classic fish and chips, cod (48 per cent) and haddock (19 per cent) were the most popular choices, but 69 per cent simply order a portion of chips. It also emerged 44 per cent believe fish and chips is the 'food of the people' and 39 per cent said class doesn't impact how people eat it. While 46 per cent feel there is something nostalgic about eating the British staple with a wooden fork, which 33 per cent typically do, although 38 per cent opt to eat it by hand. Food psychologist, James Cornish, said: 'There are few things that unite the British public quite like fish and chips. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Golden, salty, comforting, and steeped in history, this timeless dish is more than a meal - it's a national treasure. 'Loved across generations, social classes, and regions, it's one of those rare things that truly brings us together. 'There's a certain kind of magic in fish and chips - a simple meal that somehow carries the weight of memory, comfort, and delight. 'Maybe it's because we don't expect too much from humble food, but our delight is excelled through the delivering of more than we expected.' What's your favourite UK holiday treat? | Will Ireland/PinPep Brits' top 20 UK holiday treats: Fish and chips Mr. Whippy ice cream Cream tea Ice lolly Hot doughnuts Cornish pasty Strawberries and cream Chip butty Fudge Battered sausage Candy floss Pie and mash Stick of rock Crab sandwich Fish finger sandwich Mussels Cockles Lobster roll Pickled egg Crab sticks
